Scottish immigrant Alexander Winton, owner of the Winton Bicycle Company, turned from bicycle production to an experimental single-cylinder automobile before starting his car company.[1]
Winton owned a large lakeshore estate in Lakewood, Ohio.[2] In the mid-1960s the home was demolished and an upscale high rise condominium was constructed aptly named Winton Place.

The company was incorporated on March 15, 1897. Their first automobiles were built by hand. Each vehicle had fancy painted sides, padded seats, a leather roof, and gas lamps. B.F. Goodrich made the tires for Winton.[3]

By this time, Winton had already produced two fully operational prototype automobiles. In May of that year, the 10 hp (7.5 kW) model achieved the astonishing speed of 33.64 mph (54.14 km/h) on a test around a Cleveland horse track. However, the new invention was still subject to much skepticism, so to prove his automobile's durability and usefulness, Alexander Winton had his car undergo an 800-mile (1,300 km) endurance run from Cleveland to New York City.[3]

Alexander Winton, in Cleveland, Ohio sold his first manufactured semi-truck in 1899.
On March 24, 1898, Robert Allison of Port Carbon, Pennsylvania, became the first person to buy a Winton automobile after seeing the first automobile advertisement in Scientific American.[3] Later that year the Winton Motor Carriage Company sold twenty-one more vehicles, including one to James Ward Packard, who later founded the Packard automobile company after Winton challenged a very dissatisfied Packard to do better.[4] Winton sold 22 cars that year.[1]

In 1899, more than one hundred Winton vehicles were sold,[5] making the company the largest manufacturer of gasoline-powered automobiles in the United States. This success led to the opening of the first automobile dealership by Mr. H.W. Koler[6] in Reading, Pennsylvania. To deliver the vehicles, in 1899, Winton built the first auto hauler in America.[3]

Winton vowed to come back and win, producing the 1902 Winton Bullet, which set an unofficial land speed record of 70 mph (113 km/h) in Cleveland that year. The Bullet was defeated in another Ford by famed driver Barney Oldfield, but two more Bullet race cars were built.

In 1903, Dr Horatio Nelson Jackson made the first successful automobile drive across the United States.[8] On a $50 bet, he purchased a slightly used 2 cylinder, 20 hp Winton touring car and hired a mechanic to accompany him. Starting in San Francisco, ending in Manhattan, the trip took sixty-three days, twelve hours, and thirty minutes, including breakdowns and delays while waiting for parts to arrive (especially in Cleveland[9]). The two men often drove miles out of the way to find a passable road, repeatedly hoisted the Winton up and over rocky terrain and mud holes with a block and tackle, or were pulled out of soft sand by horse teams.[10] Jackson's Winton is now part of the collections at the National Museum of American History.

Winton continued to successfully market automobiles to upscale consumers through the 1910s, but sales began to fall in the early 1920s. This was due to the very conservative nature of the company, both in terms of technical development and styling. Only one sporting model was offered - the Sport Touring, with the majority of Wintons featuring tourer, sedan, limousine and town car styling.[17]

The Winton Motor Carriage Company ceased automobile production on February 11, 1924. However, Winton continued in the marine and stationary gasoline and diesel engine business, an industry he entered in 1912 with the Winton Engine Company.

Winton Engine Company became the Winton Engine Corporation, a subsidiary of General Motors, on June 20, 1930. It produced the first practical two-strokediesel engines in the 400 to 1,200 hp (300 to 900 kW) range, which powered early Electro-Motive Corporation (another GM subsidiary) diesel locomotives and U.S. Navysubmarines. A Winton 8-cylinder, 600-horsepower (447 kW), 8-201-A diesel engine was the motive power of the revolutionary Burlington Zephyr streamliner passenger train, in 1934 the first American diesel-powered mainline train. Winton provided 201 series engines for rail use until late 1938, when Winton Engine Corporation was reorganized as the General Motors Cleveland Diesel Engine Division and the GM 567 series locomotive engines were introduced. Cleveland Diesel produced marine, stationary, and locomotive engines until 1941, when locomotive engine production was moved under Electro-Motive Diesel (EMD). In 1962 Cleveland Diesel was absorbed by EMD, which is still in business today.[18][19]

Winton and Cleveland engines were used widely by the U.S. Navy in the Second World War, powering submarines, destroyer escorts, and numerous auxiliaries. The Winton engines were systematically replaced with the more reliable Cleveland engines during refittings during the war.[18][20][21][22][23][24]

^Winton touring car In 1903, there were only 150 miles of paved road in the entire country, all inside city limits. There were no road signs or maps. They once paid the exorbitant price of $5 for 5 gallons of gas. Jackson and his partner followed rivers and streams, transcontinental railroad tracks, sheep trails, and dirt back roads.<Ken Burns documentary, "Horatio's Drive; America's First Road Trip" (c) 2003> From the Smithsonian Collection

Winton sales literature for models A, B, C and Limousine - The description at the site explains the format: "Designed to be folded in various combinations so that the text can be displayed under the corresponding image. In this digital edition each photo is displayed with the corresponding text folded to appear under the photo. The two sides of the complete, unfolded strip are also included as an application/pdf file as the final image."